ermit,
his teddy bear under his arm, and only the way his hand held to hers
showed that he, too, was scared.

The door was flung open and two Gerns strode in.

The were big, dark men, with powerful, bulging muscles. They surveyed
her and the room with a quick sweep of eyes that were like glittering
obsidian, their mouths thin, cruel slashes in the flat, brutal planes of
their faces.

"Your name?" snapped the one who carried a sheaf of occupation records.

"It's"--she tried to swallow the quaver in her voice and make it cool
and unfrightened--"Irene Lois Humbolt--Mrs. Dale Humbolt."

The Gern glanced at the papers. "Where is your husband?"

"He was in the X-ray room at--"

"You are a Reject. Out--down the corridor with the others."

"My husband--will he be a--"

_"Outside!"_

It was the tone of voice that had preceded the blow in the other
compartment and the Gern took a quick step toward her. She seized the
two bags in one hand, not wanting to release Billy, and swung back to
hurry out into the corridor. The other Gern jerked one of the bags from
her hand and flung it to the floor. "Only one bag per person," he said,
and gave her an impatient shove that sent her and Billy stumbling
through the doorway.

She became part of the Rejects who were being herded like sheep down the
corridors and into the port airlock. There were many children among
them, the young ones frightened and crying, and often with only one
parent or an older brother or sister to take care of them. And there
were many young ones who had no one at all and were dependent upon
strangers to take their hands and tell them what they must do.

When she was passing the corridor that led to the X-ray room she saw a
group of Rejects being herded up it. Dale was not among them and she
knew, then, that she and Billy would never see him again.

* * * * *

_"Out from the ship--faster--faster----"_

The commands of the Gern guards snapped like whips around them as she
and the other Rejects crowded and stumbled down the boarding ramp and
out onto the rocky ground. There was the pull of a terrible gravity such
as she had never experienced and they were in a bleak, barren valley, a
cold wind moaning down it and whipping the alkali dust in bitter clouds.
Around the valley stood ragged hills, their white tops laying out
streamers of wind-driven snow, and the sky was dark with sunset.

_"Out from the ship--faster----"_